Musk called USAID a criminal organization

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a criminal organization that should cease to exist. This was stated by the American politician and billionaire Ilon Musk on February 2.

"USAID is a criminal organization. It's time for it to die," Musk said in a post on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

Later, in a separate post on X, Musk added that the agency is "a snake's nest of radical leftist Marxists who hate America."

At the same time, the agency Asssociated Press, specified that USAID refused to give access to classified materials to representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose head is Musk.

"They're going to try to make up anything that can hurt the Trump team's reputation."

Experts explained what Ilon Musk's gesture at the US presidential inauguration parade means

Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested changing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to "Self-Help Agency" if it resumes its activities. She specified that this body of state administration is broken. And ironically called it an agency for interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Before that, on January 20, the White House website published an executive order of US President Donald Trump on the suspension of Washington's development aid to other countries for 90 days. After, on January 25, Reuters, reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) froze programs to support foreign countries, including Ukraine, following a State Department dispatch approved by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Reacting to the suspension of financial aid, Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (his term expired on May 20, 2024), said that the move was unexpected and unpleasant news for Kiev.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on February 1 that the head of the US Treasury Department, Scott Bessent , gave Musk's team access to the federal payment system to monitor and limit government spending. According to the newspaper's interlocutors, DOGE employees were granted access to the system, which processes data on payments worth more than $5 trillion a year, the department already requires access to data from other agencies. The system stores personal data of millions of citizens, which increases the risk of conflict of interest, the material noted.

January 31, Reuters reported that Musk's aides, engaged in the conduct of work in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, closed access to all databases with personal information for government employees. The systems, according to the interlocutors of the publication, included databases containing information on dates of birth, addresses, salaries and length of employment of employees.